Featured Research

from universities, journals, and other organizations

Climate Change Poker: Barriers Preventing A Global Agreement

Date:

August 4, 2009

Source:

Institute of Physics

Summary:

As the world's environment ministers, government officials, diplomats and campaigners prepare to attend the COP15 conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 to unite in the battle against climate change in one of the most complicated political deals the world has ever seen, the increasingly complex territory of climate negotiations is being revealed in a new article.

Share This

As the world’s environment ministers, government officials, diplomats and campaigners prepare to attend the COP15 conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 to unite in the battle against climate change in one of the most complicated political deals the world has ever seen, the increasingly complex territory of climate negotiations is being revealed in an article published in IOP Publishing’s Environmental Research Letters.

Related Articles

The new paper lays bare the main tripping points – political barriers and bargaining chips – which need to be overcome for countries to reach a consensus on how to address global climate change.

One of the key issues delegates will face in their attempt to agree on mitigation, is that what some countries see as barriers, others perceive as bargaining chips. While many developed countries, including the UK, favor extending mitigation actions to some developing countries, many developing countries will be using finance and technology transfer as a deal breaker for their consent to the overall deal.

Bargaining is expected to evolve around what is referred to as the ‘chicken and egg question’, that is whether actions depend on financing, or financing on actions. Researchers predict that similar to a poker game, countries will be delaying decisions until the last hours of the conference when all the bargaining chips will be on the table and parties cannot wait any longer to see who will show their hand first.

Other barriers delegates will face in their bid to reach an agreement on a post-2012 framework are issues evolving around the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and how to implement adaptation to climate change.

Even if some consensus is reached in Copenhagen, there is however no guarantee a deal will be agreed on. Nevertheless, the researchers write “Regardless, however, of the perspective from which one frames the discussions, success in Copenhagen and beyond will depend on parties’ ability to negotiate past the tripping points […] by finding ways to match barriers with bargaining chips in envisioning how the details of any future agreement can be hammered out in the months and years to come.”

More From ScienceDaily

More Earth & Climate News

Featured Research

Mar. 31, 2015 — Soil organic matter, long thought to be a semi-permanent storehouse for ancient carbon, may be much more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought. Scientists have found that the common ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — The ocean is a large reservoir of dissolved organic molecules, and many of these molecules are stable against microbial utilization for hundreds to thousands of years. They contain a similar amount ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Using the assessment tool ForWarn, US Forest Service researchers can monitor the growth and development of vegetation that signals winter's end and the awakening of a new growing season. Now these ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Geoscientists have revealed information about how continents were generated on Earth more than 2.5 billion years ago -- and how those processes have continued within the last 70 million years to ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Until now electric fences and trenches have proved to be the most effective way of protecting farms and villages from night time raids by hungry elephants. But researchers think they may have come up ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — The volcanologist Stephen Self, an expert on super-eruptions, was the first modern-day scientist to visit Tambora in Indonesia, the site of the largest volcanic eruption in 1,000 years. On the 200th ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Researchers have detected a human fingerprint deep in the Borneo rainforest in Southeast Asia. Cold winds blowing from the north carry industrial pollutants from East Asia to the equator, with ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Landfills can make a profit from all their rotting waste and a new patent explains exactly how to make the most out of the stinky garbage sites. Decomposing trash produces methane, a landfill gas ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — As the five-year anniversary of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig approaches, a new report looks at how twenty species of wildlife are faring in the aftermath of the ... full story

Mar. 31, 2015 — Accurately anticipating an approaching typhoon's destructive force makes all the difference in advance preparations and as a consequence, the cost in lives. But over the decades, climate scientists ... full story

Related Stories

Feb. 18, 2014 — Keen to appear responsive to flooding across the U.K., politicians from across the Westminster divide competed to be seen wading through water in front of cameras. Researchers explore how the ... full story

Jan. 22, 2014 — The supply of climate change knowledge is biased towards richer countries - those that pollute the most and are least vulnerable to climate change – and skewed away from the poorer, fragile and ... full story

Apr. 29, 2013 — US residents who believe in the scientific consensus on global warming are more likely to support government action to curb emissions, regardless of whether they are Republican or Democrat, according ... full story

Nov. 21, 2011 — People who believe there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about global warming tend to be less certain that global warming is happening and less supportive of climate policy, researchers ... full story

May 11, 2011 — Climate change in the Arctic is occurring at a faster and more drastic rate than previously assumed, according to experts. The latest scientific data show that developments in the Arctic's ... full story

ScienceDaily features breaking news and videos about the latest discoveries in health, technology, the environment, and more -- from major news services and leading universities, scientific journals, and research organizations.